


More than dealing

by gaps42



Series: Learning [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 14:04:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13412850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaps42/pseuds/gaps42
Summary: Eleven thinks there are countless awesome things about the real world, but she isn't sure the arcade is one of them.





	More than dealing

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a request from Anon asking for Max teaching El to play arcade games, and I got so excited about getting a prompt I kind of ran with it, so thank you!!! Also shout-out to yuzuyuri, who likes curly-haired El best; I love her dearly but you probably won't find her a lot on my writing unfortunately so I hope you enjoy this ajklshjlhsjl

Eyes wide, Eleven spins slowly as she trails after Max through the automatic doors.

“Stay close, okay?” Max says over her shoulder, long hair swishing over her back as she marches into the building like she owns it. “It's really loud in here, it'll be hard to find each other if we get separated.”

Eleven nods, eyeing the blinking lights strung along the ceiling suspiciously. She trots up to Max's shoulder and hovers so close the buckles on the straps of her overalls brush Max's shoulder blade, and she sees Max press her lips together so tightly they turn white before she looks away, red hair tickling Eleven's nose.

“It's busy in here today,” Max says, raising her voice a little even though Eleven is right behind her. “Usually it's not this crazy. We might have to wait for a machine.”

Eleven shrugs. She's never been to the arcade before; usually she's happy to tag along with whatever her friends are doing, clutching Mike's t-shirt on the back of his bike or hovering carefully, powers ready, from the ground as the boys and Max compete to see who can climb a tree the fastest in the forest she called home for months, but the loud, unpredictable noises and flashing lights had always made her give wide berth to the party's favorite spot in town. She could handle it – after what she's lived through she's pretty confident she can handle anything – but Hopper had sat her down and explained that she didn't  _have_  to handle something, if she didn't want to. Just because someone asked her to do something or go somewhere didn't mean that she had to do it any more, unless it was Hopper and chores for some reason, and the memory of flashing Christmas lights and demogorgons and the crashing, deafening sound of the world crumbling around her as they ran for their lives in the middle school hallways had made her decide that the arcade was something she didn't want to handle. She'd been perfectly happy not facing this obstacle for the months she'd been, at long,  _long_  last, allowed out of the cabin and into the real world, but then Max had casually asked her one night at one of their frequent sleep-overs why she never joined them at the arcade, and her hands had slowed in Eleven's chin-length curls at her answer.

“That's great, Ellie,” she'd said with a smile in her voice, and Eleven had glowed at the compliment and the nickname. “You definitely don't have to go anywhere you don't want to. But don't you like video games?”

Eleven had shrugged, eyelids fluttering a bit in pleasure as Max's strong fingers had massaged the back of her head. “Yes. I like Mike's games. But the basement is safe. No demogorgon.”

“But there's all kinds of games in the arcade that you can't get on the console,” Max had said, and Eleven had perked up. “And you're really good at video games, you picked up on them so fast and you can even beat Dustin and Will sometimes. And Mike, but he just lets you win most of the time.” Eleven had frowned at that. “If you ever want to try it, I can take you without the guys so that there's not so much pressure.”

Eleven had tilted her head, considering. “Just us?” She'd looked over her shoulder, searching for Max's smiling blue eyes.

“Just us,” Max had confirmed. “We can just go for five minutes, see how you feel, and leave if you want. No pressure, I just don't want you to miss out on one of the few awesome things in the real world.”

Eleven thinks there are countless awesome things about the real world, but she's starting to doubt the arcade is one of them as she looks around warily now. It's not as overwhelming as she'd thought it would be, but the air smells like burnt popcorn and the colours on the patterned carpet clash so bizarrely it hurts her eyes more than the flashing lights. She lifts her sneaker uncertainly off of a sticky patch on the floor and looks at Max, and the redhead lifts her eyebrows, concerned.

“Any time you want to leave,” Max says softly, holding her gaze. “We're gone.”

Eleven smiles. Max's eyes on her always make her feel braver. “We can stay,” she says, but wraps her fingers around Max's forearm tightly. No need to get crazy, as Hopper would say. “Where do we start?”

Max flashes her a grin, pleased, and then whips her head around to scan the arcade, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully. Her hair flips into Eleven's face when she moves, but Eleven doesn't mind. “Well, my favorite's Dig Dug, but we're not here for me. Do you see one you want to try?”

Eleven looks around, chewing her lip. Her eyes stop on a machine as the screen flickers from a cartoon knight to a writhing animated woman, blinking and pouting out at the viewer. Her hair is long and flowing, and even though she's blonde the waves remind her of Max's. “Pretty,” she says, pointing.

Max follows her finger and snorts. “Dragon's Lair? Uh, let's start with something a little more... Playable. Although you can come back later and fry it with your powers if you want. Oh, I know!” She takes off without further warning, and Eleven's eyes widen as she's thrust forward by the hand still clutching Max's arm, stumbling as she scrambles to catch up with her.

Eleven frowns at her before turning to the machine they've stopped in front of. The scene of pixelated cars driving down long brown lines Eleven presumes to be roads is much less pretty than the game she'd pointed out, but it's cute in a different way, and Max is smiling, so Eleven smiles, too. “Frogger is a lot of fun,” Max says, fishing around in her jeans pocket with the hand Eleven's not attached to. “It's pretty simple to learn, but it's a lot harder than it looks. Do you want to watch me play once and then try?”

Eleven nods, only reluctantly taking her hand away when Max drops a quarter into the machine's slot and places her hands on the controls. There's a joystick and two buttons, the same as Mike's controller in the basement, and Max patiently explains what she's doing as she nudges the pixelated frog forward between traffic and across the road. Eleven's heart speeds up as Max's frog hops from a lily pad to a much-faster log, and she leans over Max's shoulder to watch her play, enraptured.

The frog leaps forward and is run over by a boxy car, and Max clears her throat. “So that's the general idea,” she says, straightening. “You wanna try?”

Eleven does, so they switch places and Max gives her a quarter. Narrowing her eyes, she drops the coin into the slot and leans over the controls likes Max had done, trying to copy her exactly. Max leans one hip against the machine beside her, thick waterfall of hair hiding her face when she turns it towards the screen, and Eleven feels her watchful gaze as the game beeps triumphantly and the now-familiar roads appear on the screen.

The controls look like Mike's, but the difference in size and placement makes them feel like a whole new system. Eleven's eyebrows furrow as she dies almost immediately, still pounding the button even as sad 8-bit music plays over the ripples in the water from her frog's final moments. She looks over at Max to give her a  _can-you-believe-this_  look to see the redhead grinning, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she reaches over to grab Eleven's wrist. “It's okay,” she says when Eleven scowls at her. “You already learned how to use a controller, and it's actually harder to re-learn something than it is to get the hang of something new. Did you watch what I was doing when I played, or just what was happening on the screen?”

Eleven frowns and looks down at their joined hands, suddenly contrite. Max moves into her line of vision, and she raises her eyes to see Max smiling reassuringly at her, pulling away the hand over Eleven's wrist to dig around for another quarter. “Take a look at the timing of the movement,” she says, dropping the quarter into the slot and bumping Eleven's shoulder with her own when the music blares triumphantly again. “Don't start crossing the road until you can feel exactly how far he's going to go every time without looking at the controls, get the rhythm down. It's just different, not harder.”

Eleven nods solemnly, and they both turn to the screen as the roads load once more.

She dies spectacularly three more times, but once she gets what Max had said about feeling the timing of the game she is speeding over log after log as Max cheers her on. Her adrenaline pumps as she saves her frog a split-second away from death by speeding boxy car or drifting lily pad, and she's a bit smug when she finally falls off a log and it's far, far past where Max had lost the first time.

“Great job, Ellie!” Max cheers, squeezing her shoulders in a one-armed hug. “See, I knew you'd be awesome at this. Do you want to try another one?”

Eleven nods, looking around eagerly. Once she's aware of the rest of the arcade outside of their little bubble the noises all come back at once, the clashing theme music and obnoxious pinging from the machines filling her ears until her body vibrates with it, but Max slings an arm over her shoulder, hand waving mindlessly as she explains the other games she thinks Eleven will like, and Eleven can breathe again. She lets Max steer her away from the game, but something flicks against her thigh and she looks down with a frown to see a stream of tickets falling from the machine they'd been playing, tumbling to the floor. She tugs on the arm around her neck, and Max follows her gaze and laughs.

“Oh, that's right! I got so pumped about your high score I forgot the best part. The games give you tickets, and you exchange them when you're done playing for prizes and stuff at the shop. Most of the stuff's pretty lame, but keep up your track record and you could get one of the top-level prizes on your first day.”

Eleven perks up. “Candy?”

Max grins, sweeping her long hair over her shoulder as she bends down to pick up the tickets. “Candy's pretty cheap, but you could get a lot of it for this many tickets, I guess. Oh, Ms. Pac-Man! You have to play this at least once.”

She leads Eleven around the arcade, walking her through each game patiently and stepping back to cheer her on as she plays. The controls and reaction times change a bit with each game, but it's never as different as going from Mike's controller to the arcade machine, and she picks each game up quicker and quicker as she eagerly tries game after game. Glowing with achievement, she punches  _Ellie_  into the six-letter maximum high score space on Space Invaders as Max whoops and claps beside her, ignoring the dirty looks from the boys crowded around the machine next to them.

“Damn, Ellie, we should go pro, get a coach-player tour thing going on, you're that good. Okay, last quarter, do you want to try something new or go back to a game you like?” She holds up the coin between her thumb and pointer finger, grinning widely. Eleven's heartbeat picks up at the happiness radiating from her, and she chews her lip as an idea forms in in head.

“You play,” she says with finality.

Max looks confused, eyes darting away as she processes Eleven's words. “Me? No, Ellie, I play all the time, we're here for you.”

Eleven nods, rocking back on her heels as she folds her hands behind her back. “I know. I want to watch you play.”

Max frowns, but her eyes stray longingly to the Dig Dug machine, and Eleven smiles, pleased with herself. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I can play again another day.”

Max lights up, and the adrenaline Eleven feels rush through her body is better than from any game she's played today. “Yeah? All right, we'll definitely come back. Tell Hopper to cough up some quarters next time, though, I don't mind sharing but I know for a fact that he makes more money than I do.”

Eleven giggles and trails after her as she leads the way to Dig Dug. She's in her element, sky-blue eyes narrowed as she squares her shoulders and hunches over the machine, and Eleven finds her toes are curling in her shoes as she suddenly wants that intense, focused gaze on herself, but the game bleeps to life and she forces herself to look away from Max and focus on the screen.

A few minutes in and it's impossible to look anywhere  _but_  the screen. Eleven gasps as Max makes spectacular saves, moving at a speed which should be impossible as she expertly navigates through the game. She tops level after level after level, and when she's typing  _MadMax_  into the top score list Eleven sees the same name several times down the list. She gapes at Max, speechless, and Max is blushing when she bends over to pick up her waterfall of tickets even as she grins a big smugly.

“I told you, I've played before,” she says, winking. Eleven laughs, ducking her head as her heartbeat pounds in her stomach. If playing herself was exciting, watching Max play was as much of a rush as lifting a van with her mind, and she dizzily wipes the back of her hand under her nose as Max holds up their combined pile of tickets and raises her eyebrows.

“Candy?” she says.

The prize counter is hidden away in the back of the arcade next to the concession stand. Max lets Eleven pick out most of the prizes, claiming most of the tickets had been hers although the sheer amount Max had won from one game may have matched Eleven's run. She does get a lot of candy, but she buys Max a little plastic monster shaped like a thimble with tiny arms, and Max bends over the counter she laughs so hard at it, putting it onto her pointer finger immediately and making suggestions for prizes in a goofy monster voice as Eleven counts out her tickets carefully. Max is pretending to make the monster eat Eleven's Fun Dip powder as they sit on the bench outside the arcade, surrounded by their haul as they wait for Hopper to come and pick Eleven up, and Eleven smiles around the candy stick in her mouth.

“You know what we should do,” Max says, turning towards Eleven on the bench with shining eyes. “We should keep coming back here secretly and practice, get you really good, and then tell the boys you want to try out the arcade for the first time and watch their reactions as you kick their butts.”

Eleven tilts her head back as she laughs, shaking so hard candy tumbles from her lap. “Oh, their faces!” They giggle together until Eleven abruptly remembers something, and she makes a face. “I told Mike we were coming today.”

“Oh.” Max rolls her eyes, expression falling just a bit as she turns back to sit properly on the bench. She winks when she sees Eleven looking at her, grinning merrily, and Eleven wonders if she'd imagined the change in expression. “Well, we can still do the player-coach thing, great alternative to starting school next year,” she says, and Eleven laughs as Hopper's police cruiser pulls up in front of them.

“Thank you, Max,” Eleven says softly, standing to collect her candy. Max stands, too, and Eleven throws her arms around her friend, burying her face in the sun-warmed hair flowing over her shoulder. “I had fun.”

“Me too,” Max says, equally soft, wrapping her arms around Eleven's waist. “I'm really glad you liked the arcade.” She squeezes the taller girl's waist, and Eleven's toes curl. She pulls back to look into Max's eyes, and they smile at each other for a moment which must go on for too long because Max raises the thimble monster on her finger up in front of her nose and says in her goofy voice, “And thank you for adopting me.”

Eleven grins, stepping out of her arms reluctantly and turning to gather up her candy. She's still learning social cues, but her friends always manage to not make her feel stupid about it. “Bye, Max,” she says, and gives her one last beaming smile before she turns and trots over to Hopper's car.

It's not until she's leaning her head against the passenger's side window, ignoring Hopper's lecture about how all of that candy is _not_  coming into the house, that she realizes that the whole time she'd been with Max she hadn't felt any of the things she'd always associated with the arcade, and she smiles softly against the glass.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the prompt!!! I hope you liked the change in perspective, I don't write a lot of Eleven POV so this was challenging for me hhhh


End file.
